The Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday endorsed administering lower-dose booster shots of the Moderna vaccine for seniors and people at risk of severe COVID-19.
Illinois health officials on Friday reported 15,669 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, along with 184 additional deaths and over 189,000 new vaccine doses administered.
In all, 1,665,777 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state since the pandemic began, according to the latest data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. The additional deaths reported this week bring the state to 25,407 confirmed COVID fatalities.
The state has administered 780,699 tests since last Friday, officials said, bringing the total to more than 33 million tests conducted during the pandemic.
The state’s seven-day positivity rate on all tests dropped to 2.5% from 2.6% last week, officials said. The rolling average seven-day positivity rate for cases as a percentage of total tests also dropped to 2.0% from 2.1% last week.
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Over the past seven days, a total of 189,357 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered to Illinois residents. The latest figures brought the state’s average to 27,051 daily vaccination doses over the last week, per IDPH data.
More than 14.9 million vaccine doses have been administered in Illinois since vaccinations began in December. More than 54% of Illinois resident are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with more than 69% receiving at least one dose.
As of midnight Thursday, 1,500 patients were hospitalized due to COVID in the state. Of those patients, 341 are in ICU beds, and 172 are on ventilators.
